Ko. 50 Friday, September 25, 196^ ADVANCE FOR MAGAZINES ONLY The Responsive Eye, an exhibition of more than 125 paintings and constructions by about 75 artists from some ten countries, documenting a widespread and powerful new direction in contemporary art, will be on view at The Museum of Modern Art from February 25 through April 25, I965. Directed by William C. Seitz, the exhibition was announced in I962 and has been in preparation for more than a year. An illus- trated catalog will be published in February, followed later in I965 by a book on the subject and its historical development. After the New York showing, the exhibition will travel to St. Louis, Seattle, Pasadena and Baltimore. The Responsive Eye exhibition will bring together paintings and constructions that initiate a new, highly perceptual phase in the grammar of art. Using only lines, bands and patterns, flat areas of color, white, gray or black, or cleanly cut wood, glass, metal and plastic, certain of these artists establish a totally new relationship between the observer and a work of art. William Seitz, commenting on the exhibition, says: "Unlike most previous ab- stract painting, these works exist less as objects to be examined than as generators of perceptual responses, of colors and relationships existing solely in vision; of forms, presences and variations often entirely different from the static stimuli by the artist. Such subjective experiences, brought about by simultaneous contrast, afterimages, illusions and other optical devices are entirely real to the eye, al- though each observer will respond to them somewhat differently. "The responses are by no means merely retinal, and they vary widely from opti- cal tensions and fusions of color or tone to sonorous interactions between hues of the spectrum, retroactive effects of flatness, advance and recession, and arrange- ments of shapes, lines and patterns that exert a control over perception capable of arousing delight, anxiety and even vertigo." he Museum of Modern Art ,y eS t 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019 Circle 5-8900 Cable: Modernart more... *
Transcript
Ko. 50 Friday, September 25, 196^ ADVANCE FOR MAGAZINES ONLY
The Responsive Eye, an exhibition of more than 125 paintings and constructions by
about 75 artists from some ten countries, documenting a widespread and powerful new
direction in contemporary art, will be on view at The Museum of Modern Art from
February 25 through April 25, I965. Directed by William C. Seitz, the exhibition
was announced in I962 and has been in preparation for more than a year. An illus
trated catalog will be published in February, followed later in I965 by a book on
the subject and its historical development.
After the New York showing, the exhibition will travel to St. Louis, Seattle,
Pasadena and Baltimore.
The Responsive Eye exhibition will bring together paintings and constructions
that initiate a new, highly perceptual phase in the grammar of art. Using only
lines, bands and patterns, flat areas of color, white, gray or black, or cleanly
cut wood, glass, metal and plastic, certain of these artists establish a totally
new relationship between the observer and a work of art.
William Seitz, commenting on the exhibition, says: "Unlike most previous ab
stract painting, these works exist less as objects to be examined than as generators
of perceptual responses, of colors and relationships existing solely in vision; of
forms, presences and variations often entirely different from the static stimuli by
the artist. Such subjective experiences, brought about by simultaneous contrast,
afterimages, illusions and other optical devices are entirely real to the eye, al
though each observer will respond to them somewhat differently.
"The responses are by no means merely retinal, and they vary widely from opti
cal tensions and fusions of color or tone to sonorous interactions between hues of
the spectrum, retroactive effects of flatness, advance and recession, and arrange
ments of shapes, lines and patterns that exert a control over perception capable of
arousing delight, anxiety and even vertigo."
he Museum of Modern Art ,yeSt 53 Street, New York, N.Y. 10019 Circle 5-8900 Cable: Modernart
more... *
*
-2-The exhibition will be limited to works that represent its theme most purely.
Figuration, free form, gestural brushstrokes and thick impasto, which muffle and
weaken the function of colors and shapes, are excluded.
Every relevant tendency within the theme of the exhibition is represented,
including those which have been categorized as "Optical," "Retinal," or "Cool" art,
"Hard Edge Painting," "Visual Research," "The New Abstraction," "La Nouvelle
Tendance," "Post Painterly Abstraction," "Color Imagery" and "Programmatic Art."
As was the case during the fifteenth century, when artists employed the new method
of linear perspective, the means used in these works have reverberations beyond the
field of art. They incorporate laws of vision under study by scientists since the
time of Helmholz, Hering and Chevreul, which have been occasionally employed by
artists since the time of Monet, Cezanne and Seurat. The recent appeal of this art
represents a peak in the history of color theory; it utilizes visual demonstrations
of experimental psychology and optics (among them the dynamic effects of ambiguous
perspective and moirfi pattern); it transfers experiments begun in design schools
and laboratories to the fine arts; it offers a new and rich source of study to
scientists in several fields•
"Nevertheless, it should be emphasized," Seitz continues, "that these are the
creations of artists, not the research of scientists or technicians. Certain of
the painters and constructors to be shown proceed as coldly and programmatically as
computors. Others are poetic, musical or mystical in spirit, and these two extremes
sometimes exist together. Yet none of them follows systems or rules: rather, they
discover inherent laws through creative experience."
Among the artists to be shown are: Agam, Albers, Anuskiewicz, Brach,
Tadasky, Tomasello, Va3arely, Wilding and Yvaral; the Groupe de Recherche d'Art
Visuel (France), Gruppo "T" and Gruppo "N" (Italy), Equipo5T (Spain) and "Zero"
(Germany)also will be represented.
Additional information available frcm Elizabeth Shaw, Director, Department of Public information, The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 St., New York 19, N.Y. CI 5-G9OO
